Weekend Recap: Girls (+Chester) Weekend while Adam's in Vegas

Our Friday night was pretty low key. We made dinner together, Adam packed for Vegas, I cleaned a bit, and Chester moped.

"Don't leave me dad!!"

On Saturday, I dropped Adam off at the airport at noon. It was a gorgeous day, so Chester and I enjoyed a nice walk. My mom and sister arrived around 2:30 for our Girls (+Chester) Weekend. Chester was really excited to see them. He was less excited when we left soon after for our 3:25 movie - Titanic in 3D. It was really good, but it's so sad and intense. I love that movie, but it makes me feel rather old. I remember going to see it a few times while it was in the theaters - FIFTEEN years ago!

That night, we ordered pizza from Savoy's and enjoyed it while watching a movie together - Twilight: Breaking Dawn: Part 1. It was laughably bad, yet entertaining. That book was completely ridiculous though, so I don't know why I was surprised. And Chester hated all the wolves. Like really hated.

We all slept in on Sunday morning, and then went to brunch at Meritage at 10:15. Oh how I love Meritage. Mom and Stine enjoyed it as well. Mom and I both had drinks - Bloody Mary for her and the Meritage Mimosa with blood orange for me.

With our yummy drinks

 They both had the French Onion Soup with small salad, while I had the Ricotta Cheese Blintzes with Cinnamon-apple compote & crème fraîche. They were really good, but they were very sweet and dessert like so I'm glad we also split an order of Pomme Frites.

Christine with her crock of French Onion and salad

My ricotta blintzes

What could be better than Pomme Frites with Bernaise!

 Of course we also had to get dessert! I shared creme brulee with mom, and Christine had a dessert that was like 3 cream puffs filled with ice cream and hot fudge drizzled on top. I think they were called profiteroles. Mom also got an orange blossom macaron which she shared with us. I love macarons. I need to learn how to make them!

Our dessert spread

What a fun brunch we had together!

 Next up was a trip to Gerten's Nursery to look around and get some plants. I got a lot of ideas for plants I want when we get the side of our house cleaned up more. There are so many options besides weeds!

My mom and sister left around 2. I'm so appreciative that they came up to visit and keep us company while Adam was out of town. It made it less lonely.

Chester and I had a nice afternoon together full of snuggling, playing and a few walks. It was really nice out until it stormed and got cold around 7:30. There were a lot of Titanic specials on because of the 100 year anniversary, so I watched a lot of them. I've always been fascinated by the Titanic, since I was pretty young - years before the movie came out.

I talked to Adam yesterday, and it sounds like they're having fun in Vegas for David's bachelor party. I remain jealous that I was not invited with. He sent a few photos as well -

Freemont Street

View from the 50th floor of the Rio - a club that was half inside and half outside

Dang Household Updates

A few updates on what's happening in our world!

Chester
- Chester loves his new CUZ toy he received from the Easter Bunny. It's become his new favorite bedroom play time toy (when we play, it's usually in the bedroom because it's the only room downstairs with carpet so he doesn't slide around too much).

- He lives for his twice daily walks. This morning, he insisted we stop and sniff every.single.tree!

Adam

- Adam is looking forward to his upcoming trip to Vegas with friends for a bachelor party. He leaves on Saturday and is back on Tuesday. We've all seen The Hangover, so as you can expect, I'm a little bit nervous...

Stef

- I'm busy obsessing over our Europe trip. As usual.
This week I booked our Paris hotel, Duquesne Eiffel, and our EuroStar train from London to Paris. I think Adam's getting sick of my constant questions about what he thinks about x hotel or location or train/flight time.
Here's our Paris hotel - http://hotel-duquesne-eiffel-paris.com/en/home
It looks like it's in a fun area, within walking distance of a few things we want to see, and close to a Metro stop. Christine stayed not too far away last summer and said there was lots to do in the Eiffel Tower area.

- I'm really looking forward to my mom and sister's visit tomorrow and Sunday while Adam's in Vegas. I'm sure I'll share all about it next Monday.

Weekend Recap: Easter in La C

Dearest blog readers,
Has it really been a week since I last posted?! Are any of you still reading?
I know I've been slacking in my blog updates lately. Adam and I started car pooling a few weeks ago, and I'm still getting used to the change in schedule. I promise to do better.

Moving on to the eagerly anticipated EASTER WEEKEND RECAP!

Adam and I both worked half days on Friday, so we were able to get back to La Crescent around 4. It was a beautiful day out, so we took advantage of the wonderful weather and went out on my parent's new pontoon boat. It was so warm I even took my shoes and socks off for a bit.

 It is a thing of beauty. All the loungers are so comfortable. As my dad said, "It's like riding down the river in your living room". I'm eagerly awaiting even nicer weather and many sunny afternoons out on it.

One of the back loungers (behind the driver's seat)

That evening, we had a fried food extravaganza at home. We had cheese curds, french fries, onion rings, dill pickles AND Christine's idea, deep fried double-stuff Oreos. YUM!

On Saturday morning, Adam and my dad did some fishing for a few hours. They couldn't stay out long though as my dad had to go in to work for most of the day. Adam and I did some relaxing at home with pug, and then went and visited my dad at work. We also did a little bit of antique shopping.

For dinner, we all went out to Manny's. Mom and I had the jumbo margaritas which were indeed, quite jumbo. I had the seafood burrito just like last time. It was delicious. Back at home, we played cards and relaxed.

Easter morning we got up early to see what the "Easter bunny" brought us.

I had a hard time finding all 10 of my eggs. As usual. But I actually found my Easter basket

AND Chester's quickly for once.

He was very interested to see what he got!

Chester had a good time playing with the plastic Easter eggs.

"I want to play with them SO bad"

And also barking at them...

 We went to mass and then returned home as mom's side of the family and some of dad's were coming over. It was nice to see everyone, but of course I ate way too much. There were so many good things!

Three different desserts. I tried them all. Of course.

Our little fam

We left around 3:30, and drove back to the cities. We dropped Chester off at Grandma and Grandpa L's, and then went over to join in the festivities with Adam's family.

What a busy yet fun family filled weekend!

I wish I would have taken more photos though... I'll just have to wait until I see my mom again and I can grab some of the ones she took.

Weekend Recap: Movies, Yard work, Family, Meritage

Friday night we went to the movies, The Hunger Games to be exact. I read the three books back in 2009 and 2010, so I don't remember exact details of the first book in order to compare it to the movie. Sometimes that's a good thing though as you aren't sitting there nit picking everything in the movie. I really enjoyed it, as did Adam (surprisingly). It was kind of long, but went by really fast.

On Saturday, we had a somewhat lazy day of watching movies and relaxing. Free STARZ movie weekend on DirecTV! Then we had Adam's family over in the evening for dinner. Adam grilled some delicious steaks along with asparagus and garlic bread. I made a Caesar dressing for our salad. Robin brought a yummy lemon dessert. We haven't had them over in a while, and it was nice.

Sunday we did some dreaded yard work. I think we FINALLY have all the random tires-used-as-landscaping-in-our-yard up. Thank goodness. We even discovered some in the lawn we didn't even know were there! We also worked hard on removing all the mutant vines along the fence. It looks better already, but there's still so much to do. We inherited a bit of a yard disaster when we bought the house.

Why yes, all these lovely tires were buried in our side yard. Lovely. The branches in the back are about 1/3 of the
vines we pulled off the fence. Whose fence is it though? Ours or our neighbors?

That evening, we went out for dinner just the two of us to our favorite restaurant, Meritage in St. Paul. It was delicious, as usual. To start, we each had an order of Soupe à l’Oignon Gratinée which was delicious but huge. I was practically full with just that. I also had one of my favs, a Foie Gras Macaroon. For our main course, I had the Moules Frites (Mussels steamed with smoked pancetta, garlic, tomato & white wine. Served with house-cut pomme frites) and Adam enjoyed the Lacquered Breast of Wild Acres Farm Duck (Vanilla scented winter fruit, pomegranate gelée, celery root, cabbage, pomme dauphine & sauce Madeira). I didn't try his, but mine was amazing. There are so many wonderful things to try on their menu, but I would still get it again. Yum.

Self portrait of us after Meritage - not the best of me, but I'll deal